AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is quite pleased with himself. He says his company is greatly improving its call quality. (Source: AT&T)

Says it has come a long ways in figuring out how to deal with the iPhone strain

Thanks
to the success of Apple's iPhone, AT&T's customer base has
increased over the past three years. However, the network has also
been pushed to the breaking point. In terms of data speed, AT&T
appears to be the fastest network in the U.S., but its voice network
has been plagued with reports of dropped calls and poor voice call
quality.

However,
starting this year AT&T has been beefing up its network,
investing an additional $2B
USD in infrastructure. Company Chief Executive
Officer Randall Stephenson said in
a CNBC television interview which aired Tuesday that those
efforts are paying off.

He said his company is close to
bringing its mobile voice call quality close to where it wants it.
He states, "We've been going hard at the voice quality
issue."

Stephenson did not discuss dropped calls, but
AT&T spokespeople have expressed to us previously this year that
the company believes dropped call rates are falling. Those
claims are at odds, though with a recent study that claims dropped
call rates are actually going
up.

Its
voice network has reportedly had dropped call rates as
high as 30 percent in recent years (AT&T's own
statements have indicated a much lower rate of < 5 percent of
calls dropped, but AT&T has continually been unable to provide us
with dropped call rate studies that focused exclusively on urban
areas).

AT&T is bracing itself for a massive surge in
subscribers with the release of the iPhone
4. Hopefully the investments in its wireless network
infrastructure will show some real world benefits once these phones
start reaching customers later this month.

"We basically took a look at this situation and said, this is bullshit." -- Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng's take on patent troll Soverain